defragmentation in Linux: is it needed?

mac1234mac · 05-20-2006, 02:11 PM

Hello

My question is this: is there a need to defragment hard drives in Linux?. If yes what progs do it?.

Cheers

pdeman2 · 05-20-2006, 02:21 PM

Linux file systems are designed to avoid fragmentation. I have heard that some filesystems do get a little bit of fragmentation after a while. I've never had to defragment, but you might want to check out the debugfs command for some filesystem tools.

Tinkster · 05-20-2006, 04:10 PM

Umm ... debugfs won't let you defragment a file-system, and I wouldn't
recommend to a newbie (someone who obviously didn't know that Linux
FS' are "fragmentation-repellant") to play with it.

You're right that Linux commonly doesn't get fragmented file-systems;
it is indeed hard to force fragmentation (a safe way would be to fill
a partition up with many small files, delete several non-neighbouring
ones and write some big files)

Cheers,
Tink

pdeman2 · 05-20-2006, 09:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tinkster

Umm ... debugfs won't let you defragment a file-system...

Sorry, I've only used debugfs once. I wasn't sure if that would work or not.